Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
收入不平等作为公共投资二氧化碳减排潜力的障碍：来自拉丁美洲的证据
Income inequality as a barrier to the CO2-reducing potential of public investment: evidence from Latin America
摘要
This paper aims to empirically analyze the association between public investment and carbon emissions relative to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for a panel of Latin American countries from 1994 to 2019. Given that reduced income inequality can enhance the effectiveness of environmental policies, the estimations are carried out under two income inequality regimes: higher and lower. A nonlinear Local Projections model with a threshold is employed, dividing the sample into two groups based on the Gini index. The results show that, during periods of relatively low income inequality, the estimated response of carbon-intensity growth to changes in public investment is negative over time. In contrast, under conditions of relatively high income inequality, the estimated association is not statistically significant at the 10% level. Our estimates suggest that a 10% increase in public investments is associated with an approximately 4.40% reduction in the growth rate of carbon intensity in the low-inequality regime, as measured by the Gini index, until the fourth year following the increase in public investment. These empirical findings support existing literature highlighting the positive association between income inequality and carbon emissions.
中文摘要
本文旨在对1994年至2019年拉丁美洲国家面板数据中公共投资与碳排放相对于国内生产总值（GDP）之间的关联进行实证分析。鉴于收入不平等程度降低能够增强环境政策的有效性，本文在两种收入不平等制度下进行估计：较高不平等与较低不平等。本文采用带阈值的非线性局部投影模型，依据基尼指数将样本分为两组。结果表明，在收入不平等相对较低的时期，碳强度增长对公共投资变化的估计响应随时间推移为负。相比之下，在收入不平等相对较高的条件下，估计关联在10%水平上不具有统计显著性。我们的估计表明，在低不平等制度下（以基尼指数衡量），公共投资增加10%与碳强度增长率下降约4.40%相关，这一效应持续至公共投资增加后的第四年。这些实证发现支持了现有文献中关于收入不平等与碳排放之间存在正向关联的结论。